At the end of the day, who are you? Last week I posted my newest headshot on facebook, and someone commented: “Why are you so perfect”. I saw it and did not correct the person who wrote that comment. I am someone who seeks perfection. Perfection has always been the ultimate goal for me. At the end of the day, I tend to be selfish, not because I want to be, but because I taught myself a long time ago that all you truly have in this world is yourself.
Therefore if I have to be able to love me. I have to be able to look at myself as the closest version of perfect, right? Perfect means a lot of things for me, but mainly stability. I’m a perfectly stable, successful person. I am far from my origin story. I have risen above where I started. And at the end of it all, I am perfect.
Speaking of my origin story, I hope to one day share that story. It is long, emotional, and I feel as though I have yet to process all of it. If you would like a hint, my origin story is crazy enough for a producer to offer to fly me out to L.A. to be on the Dr. Phil show. Yeah, I know! Juicy enough for reality TV, and yet damaging enough to where I can’t live in a moment of instability.
This summer I had to find a new job. Luckily I never had a gap in employment due to luck and a seriously amazing friend, but everything was uncertain. I had no clue how I was going to be able to afford college, how I was going to maintain myself, and I most certainly had no clue what I wanted to do next. It was unstable, and that’s when I realized why I was always working hard to be so damn perfect. Because for me prefect is always knowing what comes next. It is always having a plan and knowing what direction I was moving in. This summer that stability was challenged, sure only for a couple of months because the universe always aligns, but it was challenged, and I was scared.
Returning me to my origin story. Fear; the deeply woven thoughts and memories emerging from the surface that I don't dare speak aloud. I remember calling a good friend and I told her how much I hated myself. Yes, I wanted to be perfect. At that moment I was scared and unstable, and not perfect. I was returning to the state at which I had worked so hard to rise above. The state that had broken me, and yet given me the grit I needed to fight.
And the worst part about all of this is that life works that way and that’s why I titled this blog Humility in Unknown Possibilities because I know I will not always be stable. I know that my world will surely be shaken and that the tides of change will pull harder as the years pass. I hope that in 2020 I will finally be able to write and process through my origin story and be able to heal and align closer to my imperfections. Because what I ignored to admit on that facebook profile picture is that I am not perfect. I am far from it and yet still fighting. I feel as though I should learn to give up the fight. I should finally do what someone has already started teaching me to do, and let go of the fight to be perfect. I need to breathe, soak in the sun, remain present, and draw nearer to the imperfections. The imperfections that have continued to haunt me because at the end of the day I only have myself.
So which version do I want, the perfect and stable Sarah or the imperfect Sarah who can live spontaneously, joyously, and vulnerably?
Song: Peanut Butter Waffles by Ryan Caraveo